Smarter Space
traditionally, planning public spaces in european transport, healthcare and urban development
cities involved keeping people off the roads and sectors. Since then, atkins Intelligent
behind barriers. this “pedestrian safety” approach Space has become a vital ingredient in the
made drivers’ lives easier, but turned many cities organisation’s public realm expertise. It combines
into thoroughfares, with little consideration for masterplanning with transport, architecture and
people who weren’t in cars. pedestrian modelling expertise.
“the public realm service offered by atkins most importantly, it focuses attention back
seeks to unpick that effect,” says matthew tribe, on the people living and working in urban
director of urban and public realm design at environments. It puts a human face on the urban
atkins. “What is then done with the spaces that landscape, something that can sometimes be lost
are made available is down to the landscape, amidst blueprints and computer models.
urban and public realm designers to resolve. these “this is an incredibly valuable and niche tool,”
ideas are fed back into a strategic plan where all says tribe. “If planners don’t understand or fail to
disciplines are included, with the public realm at anticipate how people will move through a space,
the heart of the consideration. it can undo what might have been a great design
“I’ve seen many plans that looked great on solution and render it unusable.
paper but ultimately didn’t work when people “Working together, we know we can unlock
were added to the equation,” tribe adds. “the this dominant car-based approach within cities
designers and planners have failed to understand and come up with a combination of high quality
how people use the spaces. this is where the public realm design and efficient and accessible
expertise of the atkins Intelligent Space team movement systems.”
comes in: they measure, model and predict how
people will move within public spaces.”
In 2007, atkins acquired Intelligent Space,
an independent consultancy that gathers and
analyses pedestrian movement data for the
Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52